ANNOTATED TEXT OF CISG
Article 4

This Convention governs only the formation of the contract of sale and the
rights and obligations of the seller and the buyer arising from such a
contract. In particular, except as otherwise expressly provided in this
Convention, it is not concerned with:

(a) the validity of the contract or of any of its provisions or of any
usage;

(b) the effect which the contract may have on the property in the goods
sold.

E. Allan Farnsworth [U.S.], Review of Standard Forms or Terms Under the Vienna Convention, 21 Cornell International Law Journal (1988) 439-447 [Commentary calls attention to an important cross-reference between articles 4 and 6 ("Article 6 purports to give the parties an unqualified power to vary the effect of the Convention by agreement. On the other hand, article 4 makes it clear that, absent a contrary provision, the Convention does not affect any rule of domestic law dealing with the "validity" of a contract provision. Taken together, articles 6 and 4 create a tripartite hierarchy, with domestic law on validity at the top, the agreement of the parties in the middle, and the Convention at the bottom. The domestic law on validity continues to control the agreement of the parties, and both control the Convention.")

Ulrich G. Schroeter [Germany], Defining the Borders of International Contract Law: The CISG and Remedies for Innocent, Negligent, or Fraudulent Misrepresentation, 58 Villanova Law Review (2013) 553-587 available online at <http://ssrn.com/abstract=2231841> (full text may be downloaded)

Harry M. Flechtner [U.S.], Issues Relating to the Applicability of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG), U. of Pittsburgh Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2008-07. Material prepared for 4th edition of Honnold, Uniform International Sales under the United Nations Convention, Kluwer (2009). Nineteen page text may be downloaded from <http://ssrn.com/abstracts=1118118>

Sonja A. Kruisinga [Netherlands], "(Non-)conformity in the 1980 UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods: a uniform concept?", Intersentia (2004) [Burden of proof under the CISG: 157-186]

* Most members of the Autonomous Network of CISG Websites also offer bibliographies. Many are tailored, concentrating on commentaries by authors from or writing on CISG issues of special interest to specific countries or regions; some, e.g. CISG online are general and extensive; some, e.g., CISG-Belgium and CISG-Finland also list commentaries by individual articles of the CISG.

To identify other relevant commentaries, go to the cisgw3 Bibliography and Bibliography Search Form
[property, scope, sphere of application, mistake and validity are search form entries you may wish to consider]

We also encourage you to tailor your own cisgw3 bibliography search to the

* The cisgw3 bibliography contains over 500 pages of citations. Analyzing these listings can pay dividends.

One should be aware that Article 4(a) research can present a special search challenge as validity issues may be discussed in many contexts. A good example is John O. Honnold, Uniform Law for International Sales, 3rd. ed. (1999). In addition to Honnold's discussion of validity issues in his chapter on Article 4, one encounters validity discussions in his chapter on Article 8, on Article 35, and elsewhere in this text.